One swing. One cruel bounce. And the New York Mets' season just got a whole lot harder.
Closer Clay Holmes suffered a fractured fibula on a 111-mph line drive comebacker off the bat of Spencer Jones, and manager Carlos Mendoza didn't sugarcoat it: Holmes will be out "a long time."
That's baseball - brutal, unforgiving, and sometimes just plain unlucky.
Holmes was dealing. He'd been one of the Mets' most reliable arms out of the bullpen, the guy you wanted on the mound when the game was on the line. Now he's staring at months on the shelf because of a screaming line drive he had no chance to avoid.
One hundred eleven miles per hour. That's the exit velocity on the ball that fractured his leg. For perspective, that's faster than most people drive on the highway. When a baseball is coming at you that fast from 60 feet away, there's no time to react. You just hope it doesn't find you.
It found Holmes.
The video is tough to watch. You can see him go down immediately, clutching his leg, knowing something's wrong. The training staff rushed out, and the collective groan from the Citi Field crowd told you everything you need to know.
For the Mets, this is the kind of injury that can derail a playoff push. You don't just replace a shutdown closer with a snap of your fingers. The bullpen was already working overtime, and now they've lost their most dependable late-inning option.
Mendoza will have to shuffle the deck, find someone to step up, and hope the rest of the rotation can pick up the slack. But make no mistake - this is a devastating blow.
Baseball gives, and baseball takes away. Sometimes it doesn't even give you a chance to get out of the way.
That's what sports is all about, folks - cruel twists of fate that remind us nothing is guaranteed.
